Today's Takes: Monday, August 30

Good morning, everyone. Hope you had a great weekend.

Bill Maher has emerged as one of the more effective critics of the new Woke regime over the past year. A viral clip wherein he declares that "blind hatred of America is just as blinkered as blind love" made the rounds over the weekend. Maher went on to extoll the values of America, pointing out how conditions in the US are universally celebrated by immigrants who move here from elsewhere.

He focuses on a recent incident in Afghanistan wherein an Afghan comedian who made funny videos on TikTok was rounded up and murdered by the Taliban. The incident struck close to home for Maher who has been subject to ridicule from two sitting Presidents (Bush and Trump), yet never had to worry about being dragged behind a truck like a rag doll. His point is that in America, political conflict often appears and manifests more like theater than it does blood lust.

Coming from Maher's mouth, the whole monologue makes entirely too much sense to those of a certain political persuasion. But Maher stops short of aiming his criticism at the government who initiated the war in the first place. The media, both sides hammering Biden for the fumbled withdrawal, continue to intonate that we should never have left in the first place because it's both good for business and enriches the people they seek to protect. In effect, Afghanistan was a means by which the "security class" laundered money from the US tax base into its own pockets.

Maher's choice to center the critique on people's reaction to the news, despite being a much-needed rebuke to the imminent destruction and danger parrotted by the "America is irredeemably racist" crowd, misses the entire point. Afghanistan stands as a sterling example of how alienated the ruling class has become from the interests of the average American citizen and how far they are willing to go to obscure that.

Headlines

📰 Today's Front Pages

• Reuters: Rockets target U.S. troops as Afghanistan withdrawal enters final stage (Read)
• New York Times: In Ida’s Grip, Louisiana Struggles to Assess the Damage (Read)
• Wall Street Journal: Ida Batters Louisiana, Leaving New Orleans Without Power (Read)
• Fox News: Kabul airport targeted in rocket attack foiled by US system (Read)
• CNN: Ida pummels Louisiana (Read)
• NPR: 1 Death From Hurricane Ida And New Orleans Is Left Without Power (Read)
• Breitbart: Videos Show Mounting Destruction as Hurricane Ida Moves Inland (Read)
• HuffPost: All Of New Orleans Without Power As Hurricane Ida Lashes Louisiana (Read)

🏛 From the Hill

• Supreme Court Blocks New Eviction Moratorium (WSJ)
  • The government's "renter protection" programs have done dismally. Remember from earlier this week, only 11% of rental assistance payments have gone out.
• McCarthy calls for House to return and vote on delaying Afghanistan withdrawal (The Hill)
  • "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday called for bringing the chamber back from recess so lawmakers can vote on legislation that would prohibit withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan until all remaining Americans are evacuated."
• Powell Says Fed Could Start Scaling Back Stimulus This Year (WSJ)
• Biden’s dog Major bit Secret Service members 8 days in row, emails show (NY Post)

🗺 From the Frontier

• China’s Celebrity Culture Is Raucous. The Authorities Want to Change That. (NYT)
  • "The Chinese government has taken a series of steps in recent days to rein in celebrity worship and fan clubs, amid growing concerns among officials that the relentless quest for online attention is poisoning the minds of the country’s youth."
  • "Mr. Xi said in 2014 that art and culture should be made in the service of the people, and in the years since, the entertainment industry has emerged as an ideological battleground, whether it is in the censorship of themes deemed pernicious or in reining in celebrity influence."

🌧 Climat Faux Pas

• Kerry to Press China to Stop Financing Coal-Fired Energy Projects (WSJ)
  • Kerry will engage the ancient art of hysterical misrepresentation (we can stop the Earth from warming up) with a healthy dose of guilt-tripping.
• The dark side of California's emergency grid rescue plan: More dirty emissions from backup generators (Canary Media)
• Hipster Climate Change Protesters Left Behind 120 Tons Of Trash In London (ZeroHedge)

🦄 Woke-acracy

• Nirvana baby Spencer Elden is poster child for our victim culture (NY Post)
  • Elden was the naked baby on the front of Nirvana's 1991 album 'Nevermind' and hopes to extract $150,000 on charges of "child porn" and "abuse"
• CDC Publishes Guide With ‘Preferred Terms’ Americans Should Use; Suggest Citizens Refrain From Using “Dehumanizing Language” Like “Inmate” or “Foreigners” (Gateway Pundit)
  • POM (Person of Murderer)

✏️ Media on Media

• As The Atlantic draws closer to 1 million subscribers, the publisher must battle declines in traffic to keep momentum going (Digiday)
• Politico sold to German publisher Axel Springer (The Hill)

❌ Things We Don't Need

• Norwegians face £250 fine for urinating towards Russia: New sign on border warns it is a criminal offence (Daily Mail)
  • Do not urinate in my direction you foul beast.
• Are you ready to eat your delicious nutrient square? (Verge)
  • Also fits under the "Things No One Wants" section.

🏆 Men Posting Their Ws

• 21 year-old T-Mobile Hacker Who Stole Data on 50 Million Customers: ‘Their Security Is Awful’ (WSJ)

Original Essays

👋 Tell Them Phil Valentine Said, “Hey”: As legacy media revels in the COVID-related death of Nashville’s conservative talk-radio legend, we should remember his legacy of personal and governmental accountability.  (Read)

In case you missed it

• Masked Dereliction by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• Total Recall: California’s September election by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• Entourage's Last Stand by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' and the Evergreen Ills of American Politics by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)

Nashville Politics

• Only 53% of education funding in Tennessee makes it into classrooms, new Beacon Center report concludes (Tennessean)
• Individual schools, not entire Tennessee districts, can go remote due to COVID, schools chief says (Tennessean)

Nashville News

• Williamson County Schools votes to extend mask requirement (WSMV)
  • "Grades K-12 will now be required to wear a mask when in school and on the school bus, after the district originally implemented the mask mandate for only elementary students."
• (Lookout)
  • Notably, Tennessee Democrats appear more depressed about the future than Tennessee Republicans.
• Commission denies adding more ‘party vehicles’ in Nashville (WSMV)
• Tennessee Nursing Homes Report Largest Employment Drop in History (Scene)
• Thousands of jobs, few to hire at Williamson Inc. job fair (Homepage)
• East Tennessee service member killed in Kabul attack (Channel 5)

Nashville Development

• Three-building development in The Nations sells for $56.5M (Post)
• Music Row site eyed for luxury condo building (Post)
• Virginia firm adds to Nashville footprint with $56.5M buy in The Nations (Biz Journal)
• Antioch townhome development sells for $30.3M (Post)
• Local firm to design future Broadway bridge (Post)
• Work starts on Wedgewood-Houston office building (Post)
• The Cambria Hotel Addition To Midtown Corkdorks In Nashville (Now Next)

Nashville Life

Tonight
🐍 Steve Earle & the Dukes @ Ryman Auditorium, 7:30p (Info)
💀 Grateful Monday ft Hooteroll? @ Acme, 7p, FREE (Info)

Other

• With A New Building And A New Artist Incubator Program, Fort Houston Opens Its Doors For Gallery Show (Read)
• Passport to Tennessee History program launches (Read)

COVID Gutter

Great news! A recent study from Israel shows that people previously infected with COVID are significantly less likely to catch the Delta variant than those who've had two Pfizer shots. It seems doubtful that the news will land heavy amidst all the other distractions despite Bloomberg publishing the story with the authoritative headline 'Previous Covid Prevents Delta Infection Better Than Pfizer Shot'. Seeing as the Biden administration needs a W, one wonders if the carrot we'll get thrown is a further rollback of COVID restrictions such as in Denmark. Until then, rest assured that the scareporn will continue unabated.

Headlines

• Seeming at odds with players, NFL says it wants vaccine mandate to ‘go into effect tomorrow’ (WaPo)
  • Wow! Look at these nice even numbers: "We’re at 93 percent. We still can improve the final 7 percent."
  • Just asinine stuff: "Under the protocols now in effect for training camp and the preseason, vaccinated players and staffers are tested once every 14 days while unvaccinated players and staffers remain subject to the same daily testing that was in effect last season."
  • On the Tennessee Titans, Ryan Tannehill (fully-vaxed) was placed on the Reserve/COVID list because he failed a COVID test (WKRN)
• ✅ Denmark will scrap ALL Covid restrictions in two weeks and stop classifying it as 'a critical threat to society' (Daily Mail)
• Florida Judge Strikes Down DeSantis Mask-Mandate Ban (NR)
• Green Card Applicants Will Soon Need COVID-19 Vaccine to Be Eligible (Epoch)
• Israel no longer considers people who have received 2 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines "vaccinated." As of September 1, only 3x vaccinated are considered immune. (@NTarnopolsky)
  • Two dose, three dose, four dose, five. Six dose, seven dose, eight dose...

Hopsital Staffing

• Staff shortages riskier than unvaccinated workers, hospital CEOs say (Becker's)
• Nurse shortages in California reaching crisis point (CalMatters)
• Nurses Warn of Staff Shortages Due to COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates (Epoch)
• Florida Surpasses 10,000 Monoclonal Antibody Treatments at State-Sponsored Sites (Epoch)

Information

• Are Pfizer and Comirnaty the same? What to know about COVID vaccine name change (Star-Telegram)
• CDC Downplayed Scientific Finding that Masking Children Not Effective in Schools (Tallahassee Reports)
• 1 in 4 COVID patients hospitalized while vitamin D deficient die – Israeli study (Times of Israel)
• Previous Covid Prevents Delta Infection Better Than Pfizer Shot (Bloomberg)
  • "People given both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were almost six-fold more likely to contract a delta infection and seven-fold more likely to have symptomatic disease than those who recovered."

The Right to Roam

Palate Cleanser

Have a great Monday